Collection
by JudeOrion
Summary: A collection of ideas that get into my head that have to be written down while I'm working on my next full project. Rated M for language.


**Hello all. To the ones who read Right vs. Good, no this is not an early bit to my next story, sorry. This is merely one-soon to be a few, I'm sure-idea that wouldn't leave me alone, as I'm trying to write it. Just thought you might enjoy some ramblings. None of them are going to be continuous, at least I have no plans at this moment. **

**Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight. **

**Enjoy! XOXO-Ka**

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><p><strong><span>ULTIMATUM<span>**

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><p><strong>BPOV<strong>

I slowly blinked my eyes open and took a moment to adjust to my surroundings; the lights were too bright to be my bedroom, and the stupid beeping could only belong to a hospital machine. Great. What had I done now? I tried to remember…but thinking hurt. I looked down at my bandaged arm and splinted ankle. Ow. Everything hurt. There was a needle in my right arm. I lolled my head back. God, this was perfect, wasn't it? I needed to get out of here. I pressed the call button by my right hand and a nurse came in a few moments later.

She was blonde and chubby, with a friendly face and motherly disposition, but I still thought of her as a devil's advocate. Stupid nurses. "Well, I'm glad to see you're awake," she said as she smoothed back my sleep-wild hair. I flinched away from her.

"I want to see my doctor, and I want to get the hell out of here," I grumped at her.

My demeanor did nothing to dispel her maternal temperament. She nodded, "of course, Isabella. I called him when you paged me. He'll be here in about five minutes. In the meantime I'm going to check your vitals, ok?"

I raised my eyebrows because it hurt too much to shrug. "My name is Shelley, by the way. Do you know where you are? Or how you got here?" She wrapped a cuff around my arm and the automatic machine started vicing it around my right bicep.

"Isn't that something my doctor should be asking me?" I asked irritably. My throat was sore; as if sensing it, the lady filled a paper cup with water from the tap by the bathroom and brought it to me. I mumbled a thanks as she brought it to me.

"Yes, but I just wanted to see what you remember. You were in a car wreck, dear."

Squealing tires, snow, semi-truck…the car full of kids in the lane next to me…

"Oh my god. The kids? Were the kids in the other car ok?"

"They're fine. The oldest one's in the room down the hall with a broken arm, but he'll be fine. Their parents are fine, too. They were in a pretty sturdy car and hit head-on. _They_ were wearing seat belts. You on the other hand…you're very lucky, you know that?" Shelley swept a thermometer over my head; it made an eerie clicking noise and beeped. I didn't feel lucky. I was still alive, in this stupid hospital. Ironic, just when I was hoping for something to come to an end, I hit a semi. It should have killed me. Should being the operative word.

"Hmm…101.2. You're running a bit of a fever. But you seem fine otherwise." Shelley brought me out of my musings.

"When can I go home?"

"Well, hon, you're going to have to ask your doctor about that. He'll be here any minute."

A head of smooth reddish hair poked into my room. "Shell? They need you in 104."

"Be there in a sec." She turned her attention to me. "You gonna be ok for a bit alone?"

I bristled at the implication. "I'll be fine." Shelley's brow puckered. She patted my good knee and smiled. "I'll be back later." She left the room and I closed my eyes for a moment.

I didn't hear him enter the room, or even close the door. He was just there suddenly, saying my name.

"Bella?"

My eyes shot open. There he was, at the foot of my bed, all perfect golden hair and crisp blue shirt and barely-there English accent. I didn't say anything to Carlisle Cullen as he came around to the left side of my bed, eyes darting carefully from my face to my arm, to my ankle and back.

"Bella?" he repeated. He leaned closer to my face. "Are you in pain?"

Of its own volition my right arm swung and I slapped him across the face. It killed my hand, "ow, fuck!" I looked into Carlisle's face. It was wounded, but I knew it wasn't from physical pain.

"Bella—I—"

"Shut up. I want out of here. Get my fucking discharge papers and get me the hell out of here."

His eyes widened with shock. "Bella—your injuries. They'll take some time to heal. You need to stay here for a while yet."

"Fine. Then I'll leave AMA. I don't care. I need to go home."

"Charlie's on his way."

Fury swept over me. Where did he get off? "You called Charlie."

"Yes."

Guilt and fear lodged themselves in my throat, making it hard to breathe. "You bastard. Did I say I wanted to see him? I don't want him to see me like this! Christ, we haven't _spoken_ in over a year! And you call him to tell him I'm in the fucking hospital fucking three thousand miles away!" It hurt to yell but I took solace in the pain. It distracted me from the demi-god standing next to me.

"Bella…sweetheart, I'm sorry—"

"Don't you fucking 'sweetheart' me," I growled out.

Carlisle's eyes narrowed and he drew his perfect posture up, steeling himself. "All right, Bella. Let's try it the hard way then. You're staying. At least until Charlie gets here. I have the results of your blood tests, and I'm going to tell you right now that I will turn you in if I have to."

I narrowed my eyes at him but stayed silent.

"Here is what is going to happen. You are going to stay here until Charlie gets here the day after tomorrow—Sunday. You have a few options. If you try to leave AMA I will report you to the authorities and they will take you. Think about what that will do to your father when he gets here."

The words had their intended effect. Carlisle hit too close to home on that one. I didn't want Charlie to see me that way, not after everything else I'd done. I closed my eyes and leaned my aching head back. I licked my dry lips and motioned for Carlisle to go on.

"When Charlie gets here," he continued, "you will tell him everything that has been going on. Then we will go over your options from there, but I refuse to let you continue to slowly kill yourself."

"What about if I do it quickly?" I quipped, almost automatically. Until then, Carlisle had remained stoically standing in one place to the left of me. When the snide comment fell out of my mouth, he sat next tome and pulled my hand gingerly into his. I opened my eyes to see him staring intently into mine. His tawny eyes were narrowed, his whole face pulled into a fearful grimace.

"Bella, did you hit that truck on purpose?" he asked bluntly.

I shook my head. "No. But when I saw it coming I wasn't scared. I was on my way home to—" I shut up quickly. Too much. I looked straight at him. "Look, I don't give a shit what you think of me." Liar. "But if Charlie made the effort to come see me then I'll act normal for him. What are my options after he gets here?"

Carlisle sighed heavily and dropped my hand. "You can go to a treatment facility here. I don't see that as the better option, however, because I know you don't have family here and I'm afraid that as soon as you were released you would be as good as dead." He paused for a moment as my IV stand beeped. He pulled another bag of clear liquid from where it lay on the wheeling table with his other things and exchanged it. He sat back down in the chair by my bed after he binned the empty bag and turned his attention to me again.

"I can send you back home with Charlie to get treatment there—"

"Out of the question," I interrupted him.

"Bella, I really see that as the best option for you right now. I know it must have bad memories associated with the place, but I think you should over look that and get the help you need."

I pointed a shaky finger at him; even that slight movement hurt. "Listen. Let's you and I get something straight here," I said, feeling like a character out of a B movie with the cliché line. "Your son, your golden boy, left me. In the middle of a goddamn forest, after tearing my heart apart. He took away my family. He took my future away from me, and none of you ever bothered to say a goodbye. You don't know jack shit about what my life has been like since you abandoned me. I can't go back to Forks. I refuse. Next option." My tirade took a lot out of me. I reached for the cup on the nightstand, but it was empty. Carlisle, never one to let emotional attacks get in the way of chivalry, filled it up for me again and sat back down.

"Bella, what happened in Forks that makes you think you can't go back?"

"Next option."

He knew the subject was closed and went on. "If you refuse treatment there then the only place I can be sure that you won't go out of and straight back into your destructive habits is with me. Living in my house while you get off the drugs. Either medically or on your own, I'll leave the decision to you."

I snorted. "Right. Ok. You want me to go back to live with you. The stupid human girl you abandoned. So I can what? Go through withdrawal and all that shit while you and Esme play one big happy? While Jasper feels my pain and Rosalie glares daggers at me and Edward can show me just how blissful he is without me hanging around to cramp his style anymore? Gee, why do I feel I would go straight back to this lifestyle anyway in that kind of environment?" God, why did it even hurt to breathe? I tried to take a deep breath to stave off the tears threatening to spill, but the pain made me wince and let them fall anyway.

"Your ribs are bruised, sweetheart, take it easy," he said, moving to feel my ribs. "You're so skinny," he said, almost to himself.

"Stop calling me that," I ground out through my teeth. He searched my face for a moment and came to a decision.

"You're in a lot of pain. You need to rest. I'm going to give you something for the pain, and you're going to sleep. I'll come back in the evening to discuss this more. You're clearly in no shape to be doing this now, I don't know why I pushed you."

"If there is one thing you and your family need to stop doing, Carlisle, it's telling me what's best for me and making decisions. We will stop when I say we stop. No—" I said when he tried to interrupt. "It is over when I say it is over. End of discussion."

He looked me over and nodded. "Fine. But you need to calm down. It's not good for your ribs to be breathing heavy like that."

"I've had worse," I said evenly.

He regarded me for a moment then nodded. "You have," he conceded. Carlisle sat back down and sighed yet again. "I—I don't have the family with me anymore."

That threw me. "What?"

"After we left…things fell apart. We were all so upset. Jasper couldn't handle the high emotions anymore. He and Alice were the first to leave. Alice didn't want to go, but it was what was best for Jasper, so she did. Rosalie and Emmett—well, sometimes they went off on their own anyway. They needed a break. Edward didn't want to be around anyone. He has a lot of guilt over what he did to you, Bella. His actions set a chain reaction through the family that broke us apart, and that added to his guilt. He ran away."

Coward.

"And Esme?"

He closed his eyes. "She turned bitter. Her family left her and no matter what I did or said made anything better. She left, too. She made it clear to me that she didn't want me to follow her. She let the bitterness of her family leaving tear her apart. I have no idea where she is."

The pain Carlisle felt was evident in his voice and utterly defeated slump of his shoulders. I wondered briefly how Esme, such a sweet, compassionate woman, could betray Carlisle like that. I hated seeing him in pain, so I bit past my own anger and reached my hand out, resting it on his in his lap. He opened his eyes. I didn't say anything, but Carlisle seemed to understand me anyway.

"Thank you." He squeezed my hand and I let go, returning my hand to the bed.

"So, you see, it would be just me and you. I won't tell the others you're with me until if and when you wanted me to. Every decision would be made by you. I realize that my family has taken that right from you, and I'm so very sorry. I'm going to do everything I can to make it right again."

I didn't have the heart to hurt his feelings again. "I don't know."

"Take some time. Charlie won't be here until Sunday. You can decide then."

I nodded and yawned.

"I know you're tired but can we get to your injuries before you go to sleep?"

"Sure. What's wrong with me doc?" I made a conscious attitude to be nicer to him, even though it seemed unnatural to bite back my harsh comments and sarcasm.

"Well, your ribs are bruised, as I said earlier. There's a lot of deep cuts on your left arm and face from the glass. You had to have about twenty-five stitches in all. Thank goodness you were wearing wide sunglasses, because you could have been blinded by the glass. Your ankle is broken, also. Other than that there wasn't much damage." He sounded extremely relieved. His cell phone went off and he glanced at it briefly. I checked the clock; he'd already been here a half hour.

"Shouldn't you be getting to your other patients?"

"Actually I'm done with my shift. I wanted plenty of time to see you."

The thought almost made me smile. That was sweet. More than I expected of any of the Cullens. I blushed in embarrassment for my tantrums.

Carlisle was very understanding and didn't make my embarrassment worse, thank God.

"Actually, that was Alice. She saw us."

My heart rate sped up, Carlisle didn't need the increased tempo of the machine to know that.

"Calm down, Bella. I won't tell her anything if you don't want me to. You don't have to see her if you don't want to. I will respect your wishes on this," Carlisle said in his reassuring voice. He smoothed the blanket over my leg in a comforting way.

I swallowed and nodded. "I don't want to see her. If she's concerned, tell her I'm fine. Tell her I was in a wreck. Tell her I'll contact her when I'm ready."

"All right. Then that's what I'll do."

"Thank you," I yawned.

"You're exhausted. I'll let you get to sleep." Carlisle stood and smoothed the wrinkles out of his khakis. "Because of your addiction I can't administer any heavier drugs for the pain. But I'll get you some Tylenol if you like."

I rolled my eyes. Tylenol was about as effective as M&M's for pain.

"Don't roll your eyes at me, Bella. It's not my fault."

…And there was the "stern father" side of Carlisle.

His face softened. "Rest." He tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear and turned to leave.

Suddenly my chest felt like it was ripped open; I had to struggle to breathe. When I gasped for air, Carlisle turned, eyes wide with concern. He was back by my side in an instant.

"What's wrong?" his hand stretched out as if to comfort me somehow, but fell short.

"Will you be back?" I wheezed.

He didn't hesitate this time, but took my hand in both of his. "Calm down, Bella. I'll be back this evening, all right? I need to at least pretend to get some sleep," he winked. "I just came off a 12 hour shift. Look, it's nine forty-five. I don't have a shift tonight, but I will be back by seven."

My voice warbled. "Do you promise?"

The little line between Carlisle's eyes appeared again; I didn't like it there. "I promise, Bella. I will be here by seven."

I nodded. Carlisle smiled a reassuring smile and tried to let go of my hand as he turned to leave again. My grip tightened around his hand and he turned back around. He sighed again, "would you like me to stay until you fall asleep?"

I was spared the humiliation of having to respond: he just sat back down in the chair with my hand still in his cool one.

"Thank you. For everything," I said. I lowered the bed slightly and shifted, wincing when I turned my ankle the wrong way.

"Anything for you, sweetheart. Get some sleep."

"Don't call me that," I complained, then I closed my eyes against his patient grin and fell asleep.


End file.
